The Wormlips Scrapbook

I just don’t know why I do things like spend two-and-a-half hours editing little videos while bills and lists and obligations and tasks are, as one, breathing down the back of my neck.

Here’s a picture Teej took last night of me as I showed Richard the ropes on the wormlips blog: how to write a new post, formatting standards, stuff like that. As you know, this was the first time I’ve shared my blog. You don’t think my presence is putting Richard under any pressure, do you?

An hour later, when I stepped into the country night with an armload of things to put in my car, I found all the doors had auto-locked. The keys lay safely on the front seat. Luckily I’d left the windows open so I could reach in, but no matter what I did I couldn’t get the doors to open. I pulled the lever to open the trunk, which not only opened the trunk but set off the car alarm. What’s strange is that I don’t have a car alarm. I climbed in the front window and started pushing random buttons and turning the car on and off, but nothing worked until Richard suggested I pop open the hood. Hark: there was silence as mysterious as the chaos of a moment before. Remember that trick when you try to turn off an alarm that doesn’t exist.

Not long after, heart still speeding, I crawled into bed with a borrowed book: The First Word: The Search for the Origin of Language. Just as I started hitting my reading stride, there was movement in my peripheral vision. You know what it was: a well-endowed, fast spider racing under my covers, bound for my legs. I leapt straight up twenty or thirty feet. Airborne pillows went east while the comforter flew west. In my panicked hands sheets snapped likes sails during a hurricane. But the spider had already sped to safety in some crevice of my mattress. I slept vigilantly.

Later I’ll post a video from yesterday of TJ calling spotted owls.

The Wormlips Scrapbook’s First Guest Post
by Richard Hurley

Eureka Diggins is an early (ca 1860) hydraulic mining site about an hour north of Nevada City. “Hydraulicking” involved hijacking a roaring Sierra stream and firing it out a water cannon, right back at the mountain itself. It was a lot of fun and made a bunch of people really rich.

Unfortunately, the farmers in the Valley got all huffy as we washed millions of tons of residue their way, burying their land and silting up the delta so you could barely float a canoe. So the process was outlawed in the 1880’s by a bunch of spineless enviro-weenie judges.

Here’s what a hydraulic site looks like, 150 years later. At left you see what’s left of the hill.  At right is is some of the large rock residue below (all the fine stuff is now in the San Francisco Bay). Clearly, these people seriously wanted to get their hands on some gold. And, no, they weren’t very into cleaning up after themselves.

Okay, so much for the history lesson. On to TJ, Richard, & Ginna’s adventure!

But first we should pay tribute to the kind soul who put up this helpful notice on the flume at the base of the road that leads to the mine. Only in California are people so thoughtful.

Oops. I forgot to mention Stella came with us. Here she is in the bed of my truck, having second thoughts about the plea bargain that landed her there.

Okay, so here is what unbridled greed does to a landscape.  This is Eureka today – hundreds of acres, just like this:

Environmental devastation aside, I have to admit it makes a spectacular sculpture garden.  Though I must add that it took 150 years for the scene to mellow into its current picturesque state.

Little known fact about Eureka: it is the birthplace of the phrase “rock & roll.” Don’t believe me?  Just look at this picture and imagine what happens if anything shifts:

At a certain point, Ginna’s judgment began to, uhm, well…she kind of lost her grip…and went charging up a ribbon-sized trail with wicked precipices on either side. Here are Richard & TJ doing our lemming best to keep up with her.

Actually, it turned out to be a really good idea.  Not only did we all survive the ascent, but from our new vantage point, we were able to spot a “Palin-for-VP” picnic down below.  Fortunately, I was ready for the occasion.

Ginna’s trail left us at the top of a (hydraulically-induced) cliff, which reminded me of the top of a double-diamond ski run, only without all the nice, soft snow to plummet into.  Instant death to attempt the descent.  Out came the trusty cell phone, and soon all was under control.  Here we are, whiling away the time waiting for the rescue helicopter:

And here are Terry and Ginna, whiling away more time while the Forest Service rescue people pretended they had better things to do. (Just see if I pay my Federal income taxes this year! Ha!)

Finally, we gave it up as a bad job. An intensive search found a potentially survivable path to the base of the cliff, down which we slid on the most luxuriantly padded portions of our anatomy.  Tragically, no photos were possible during this heroic descent.

So there you have it, Ginna.  Just as it happened. I’m logging out now. I’ll leave the keys to the Wormlips server under the door mat.

Editor’s Note: These photos represent the first batch from my new Canon G9. I do believe I like the image quality so far.